What Do Managers (of Small Teams) Do Anyways? 4 | 15
What do bosses do anyways? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, we're starting a new series of episodes to answer that question! Is it a...
4 min read
Brandi Neal Nov 1, 2022 12:01:04 AM
Does anyone actually want to be a manager of managers? And if so, what do these people actually do? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast Kim, Jason and Amy discuss strategies for being an effective manager of managers. If you're managing people who manage other people, then you're managing managers. Whereas if you're managing individual contributors, you're managing a team. The most significant difference when you become a manager of managers is that now you have to become a thought partner, not just on the functional expertise and the business your direct reports are running or the product that they're building, but you also have to be a thought partner to them on how they're managing their team.
Listen to the episode:
When you are a manager of managers, it’s your job to make sure not only that the authority you have doesn’t go to your head, but that authority doesn’t go to the heads of the people who work for you. In other words, you want to make sure that nobody on your team, including you, has unilateral decision-making power over who gets hired, who gets promoted, and who gets fired. You want to make these decisions as a team.
As you switch from direct management of individual contributors to managing managers, you’re going to face new challenges. When you become a manager, you can’t be in the details of every decision; when you become a manager of managers you don’t even know all the decisions that are being made.
When you become a manager you can’t solve every problem, when you become a manager of managers you may not even know about the problems that are getting solved and you have to let go of control.
You can’t have a personal relationship with every person your direct reports manage — and at some point, you won’t even be able to know everyone’s name. And, people may start to see you differently — perhaps as the big intimidating boss they have to perform for versus the nice person they used to say hi to in the coffee line.
Listen to the full episode to hear the team share their experiences of navigating these changing dynamics, including how Kim used to "crank call" members of her team.
Have questions about Radical Candor? Let's talk >>
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Order Kim’s new book, Just Work: How To Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Create a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity, to learn how we can recognize, attack, and eliminate workplace injustice ― and transform our careers and organizations in the process.
We ― all of us ― consistently exclude, underestimate, and underutilize huge numbers of people in the workforce even as we include, overestimate, and promote others, often beyond their level of competence. Not only is this immoral and unjust, but it’s also bad for business. Just Work is the solution.
Just Work is Kim’s new book, revealing a practical framework for both respecting everyone’s individuality and collaborating effectively. This is the essential guide leaders and their employees need to create more just workplaces and establish new norms of collaboration and respect. Read more >>
Improvising Radical Candor, a partnership between Radical Candor and Second City Works, introduces The Feedback Loop (think Groundhog Day meets The Office), a 5-episode workplace comedy series starring David Alan Grier that brings to life Radical Candor’s simple framework for navigating candid conversations.
You’ll get an hour of hilarious content about a team whose feedback fails are costing them business; improv-inspired exercises to teach everyone the skills they need to work better together, and after-episode action plans you can put into practice immediately.
We’re offering Radical Candor podcast listeners 10% off the self-paced e-course. Follow this link and enter the promo code FEEDBACK at checkout.
We’re excited to announce that Radical Candor is now available as an hour-long videobook that you can now stream at LIT Videobooks. Get yours to stream now >>
The Radical Candor Podcast is based on the book Radical Candor: Be A Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott.
Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted by Amy Sandler.
The Radical Candor Podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Order his book: The Reason For The Rhymes: Mastering the Seven Essential Skills of Innovation by Learning to Write Songs.
Sound editing by PodcastBuffs.
Sign up for our Radical Candor email newsletter >>
Shop the Radical Candor store >>
Meet the team >>
What do bosses do anyways? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, we're starting a new series of episodes to answer that question! Is it a...
Kim, Amy, and Jason address a listener's question about the challenges of implementing Radical Candor within a co-managed team. They dive into how...
Is middle management really dead weight, or are we cutting off the wrong limb? In this episode, Amy and Jason take on the hype around “The Great...